arachnophilia

Whipped beets with creamed spam and grey noodles. *Yum.

skategreen

Git Em SteveDave

notallcompaniesareevil

"Cat Food", by King Crimson

Lady Supermarket with an apple in her basket
Knocks in the manager's door;
Grooning to the muzak from a speaker in shoe rack
Lays out her goods on the floor;
Everything she's chosen is conveniently frozen.
"Eat it and come back for more!"

Lady Window Shopper with a new one in the hopper
Whips up a chemical brew;
Croaking to a neighbour while she polishes a sabre
Knows how to flavour a stew.
Never need to worry with a tin of 'Hurri Curri':
"Poisoned especially for you!"

No use to complain
If you're caught out in the rain;
Your mother's quite insane.
Cat food cat food cat food again.

Lady Yellow Stamper with a fillet in a hamper
Dying to finish the course;
Goodies for the table with a fable on the label
Drowning in miracle sauce.
Don't think I am that rude if I tell you that it's cat food,
"Not even fit for a horse!"

glater

Sure, when they make the cake for the shoot, they don't bother adding the sugar and salt, so it doesn't taste good, but its not toxic. The chicken in the photo may not be cooked all the way through, but I repeat, there is no motor oil on the chicken.

A lot of the things you'll see is food stylist adding a little beet juice to the side of a steak to make it look a little bloodier/juicier. And yes, mashed potatoes are a food stylist best friend, but not for ice cream, (seriously, who can't tell mashed potatoes from ice cream?) its often used as a base to build up bigger bowls, etc of food. For instance, a stylist will put down a bed of mashed potatoes in a bowl, then build up the pasta on top of it.

Git Em is right though, they will often go through dozens and dozens of boxes of the product to find just the right pieces to use. Don't worry, the jobs I work on, the leftovers go to local soup kitchens.

Goya

FLConsumer

Git Em SteveDave

notallcompaniesareevil

Git Em SteveDave

zibby

Git Em SteveDave

Git Em SteveDave

Probably these people [www.fake-foods.com] I just saw this on Unwrapped.

I-Like-Cheese

--Clark W. Griswald

humphrmi

ceejeemcbeegee (AKA!)

The children in the ads have to spit out their mouthfuls of food into buckets under the table after each take.

Sometimes, if they have to drink something in the ad as well, they are told to spit it out, lest they get full off the liquid. One time, filming had to stop because one of the poor kids spat his food out, but drank the juice, and ended up having to go to the bathroom three or four times.

Parapraxis

@ezacharyk: It wasn't wood finish, I believe it was a liquid smoke type deal. They used a curtain steamer to steam the turkey slice. I think it was a show called "How'd They Do That?", and one of the hosts was Pat O'Brein. Also, the ketchup was 4x strained and was pretty much a paste that they applied w/ a syringe to get it in the right spots.

I watched a article on TV about this guy who "assembles" the bowls of cereal you see on the boxes or in ads. It takes him like 300 boxes to get the "perfect" pieces to make the bowl. I give him credit.

Git Em SteveDave

meepmeep

True that. I work for a company that makes vitamins and such. Occasionally we have shots of the natural ingredients on our product labels and they definitely have to be authentic. On occasion it's sent us on out of state searches looking for the exact authentic exotic fruit we need so we don't get sued.

Pigmann

Yep, you can shoot with real ice cream. One technique is to prepare the ice cream scoop, then, while it's still in the utensil, hollow it out and fill it with dry ice. Then place it in a freezer while the rest of the set and lighting issues are resolved. The ice cream scoop will be frozen solid and can resist the heat long enough to be photographed.

modenastradale

sgodun

Kat@Work

I did work for (very large upscale food retailer at a mall near you) and nearly become a vegetarian when the stylist applied shellac and Glycerin to steaks.

Spraying deodorant on grapes & oranges to make them shimmer still makes me wince. oh god...(bleeeechhhhh)

itmustbeken

amccoll

evenkevin

The rules are pretty much the same.

Redwraithvienna

kelmeister

nobodygrrl

slowreader

jook

Jello is quadruple the strength to make it bounce.
Icecream is a flour substance to help it retain its shape.
Lettuce on the hamburger is coated in varnish to keep it from wilting.
Sliced turkey is thawed coated in wood finish for color and the one slice is steam to look cooked.

ezacharyk

Narockstar

morganlh85

sir_eccles

Git Em SteveDave

Assimilation

I hope that thing's still around. Great thing to have had when I was growing up.

Assimilation

EBounding

katieb

For one thing, a lot of these techniques -- like glue instead of milk in cereal, and motor oil in place of maple syrup -- are no longer used.

For another thing, you have to bear in mind that food really isn't a subject that is best represented on a two-dimensional visual plane without any means of perceiving its taste, smell, heat, or texture. It's just a photograph. To give some impression of the total experience of the food with just a photograph requires that the food look far better than it ordinarily would.

modenastradale

brendanm14

wring

B

Appealing on the outside, unedible inside...

Victo